McAuliffe outraised Cuccinelli by almost $15 million, and he used the cash advantage to pummel him on the airwaves. A lack of resources forced the Republican to go dark in the D.C. media market during the final two weeks.

The Republican National Committee spent about $3 million on Virginia this year, compared to $9 million in the 2009 governor’s race.

The Chamber of Commerce spent $1 million boosting McDonnell in 2009 and none this time.

“If the Republicans would have rallied around the nominee instead of refusing to support Cuccinelli, he would have won,” said a GOP source involved in the race.

A constellation of liberal interest groups, meanwhile, poured money in as McAuliffe’s lead grew in the public polling. They wanted to claim credit for their particular issues, whether the environment or abortion. Mike Bloomberg’s super PAC spent $2 million in the final two weeks on ads boosting gun control, for example.

Even if the RNC thought Cuccinelli could not win, they could have used the election in Virginia to highlight the horrible train wreck that was and is ObamaCare. And make no mistake, it was ObamaCare that brought Cuccinelli to the brink of an upset.

In the end, they passed the opportunity and it’s my belief that’s because they see the Tea Party as a more serious threat to them than the Democrats. It may not have been true before, but it is now.